Kumar had led the special investigation team (SIT) formed by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to probe the Saradha scam before the case was handed over to the CBI by the apex court.

Rajeev Kumar (left) and Kunal Ghosh (right) were grilled in the initial period by a 10-member team of the CBI.

HIGHLIGHTS

Ghosh, Kumar were questioned together for more than three hours

Ghosh, Kumar were made to sit face to face during interrogation

Ghosh maintained no inventory of seized material was maintained by SIT.

As the mercury dipped in the evening in Shillong, the temperature soared in the zonal office of the Anti- Corruption Bureau of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) who made Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar and former TMC MP Kunal Ghosh sit across the table from each other from 6:40pm onwards.

The face to face interrogation that continued for more than three hours has raised many questions in the Saradha chit fund scam.

The CBI has maintained that Rajeev's statement will be compared with the statement of others before they are satisfied with the questioning.

They had earlier claimed that they had never received the pendrive and laptop seized by Jammu and Kashmir police from Sudipta Sen and Debjani Mukherjee's possession. This was handed over to the SIT.

CBI also claims that the SIT did not inform the agency that there was already an FIR against Rose Valley group in Durgapur, raising queries if there was any deliberate attempt by the SIT to mislead the CBI.

The CBI's joint interrogation of Kunal Ghosh and Rajeev Kumar continued for more than three hours.

The SIT had handed over some of the seized material to Kunal Ghosh that was taken on the first day of the raid.

Ghosh maintained that no inventory of the seized material was maintained by SIT.

The SIT did not video record the custodial interrogation. Of the five times Ghosh was questioned by SIT, the West Bengal appointed team only video recorded it once.

The CBI has been doing closely scrutinising the material seized by the SIT.

There have been allegations that hard drives seized from Saradha Company's DN-29, Salt lake office and CCTV footage haven't been handed over to the CBI. The seizure memo wasn't handed over either.

Sources said 12 hard drives were recovered from the Saradha office.

Kunal Ghosh had written to the Prime Minister flagging off the Saradha Scam and possibilities of the evidence being tampered with by the then Bidhan Nagar Commissioner Rajeev Kumar in 2013 - 2014.

Kumar was spearheading the SIT along with the then DGP Naparajit Mukherjee.